When my husband and I play tennis it is a "no-contest" contest. He is a far better player than I. In fact, we have a deal that anytime I can beat him a whole set, he will take me out for a lobster dinner. He is perfectly safe from having to pay. This contest has been running for as long as we've been married, and in 21 years I've had lobster once! The match is a "no-contest" contest. He always wins!

In this text we have another kind of competition. The contest takes place on Mount Carmel. There is a sharp rivalry between Elijah and the pagan prophets, between God and Baal, between true and false gods. But the outcome will show it to be another "no-contest" contest. God Wants To Be Your Only God

Elijah, the prophet of God, has just announced to King Ahab and the people of Israel that they must choose between worshipping the pagan gods and the Lord God of Israel. They can no longer divide their loyalties between God and his idols. The prophet's question, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions?" points out how truly disabled they are. Then Elijah commands, "If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him." 33 He then proposes a test to see which God they will worship. The choice they make must be clean-cut. They do not have the option to keep straddling the fence, serving God one day and Baal the next. The selections are not both, only one of two: God or Baal.

These have always been the only two alternatives we've been given -- and to fail to choose God is always to choose Baal -- or some other false god. God wants us to learn the lesson of how worthless all other gods are. The God of the Bible insists on exclusive loyalty. In fact, the first of the ten commandments is an emphatic and absolute rule: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me!"

Joshua had made the same challenge. After the death of Moses he called for a renewal of the covenant and said, "Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom ye will serve ... but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Until you are sure about God, you are unsure about nearly everything else. No one is as flighty and inconsistent and irresolute as that person who cannot or has not decided who is to be his/her God. James reminds us that "to be double-minded is to be unstable in everything."

Today we live in a time when every "ism," sect, and religion which comes down the pike offers a "new God" to us. Some people feel they must sample them all. So we have the Eastern religions, new age, humanism, secularism, and a plethora of strange sects, all promoting their own private brand of God. A lady told me recently, "I've finally worked out a theology about God all on my own. It leaves me lots of options and plenty of leeway, it makes no demands and carries no judgment, and best of all, it feels good. What do you think of that?" The truth is that she is not a lot different from what everyone else does who opts for a god other than the God shown to us in the Bible. And that God is revealed clearly to us in the person of his only Son. Luther was right on target when he said, "I know of no other God except the God whom I see in my Lord Jesus Christ." We are only kidding ourselves if we think we can opt for a convenient "God of the hour." A 34New Yorker cartoon showed one of those shaggy, slightly sinister drawings revealing a mixed bunch of our American contemporaries who had recently arrived in hell. They were being addressed by an affable devil, complete with pitchfork, horns, and tail. "You'll find there's no right or wrong here," he says, "just do whatever works for you." We would all do well to heed the words of Saint Augustine who said, "Before God can deliver us from ourselves we must first undeceive ourselves."

God's word warns that all such choices, other than the true God, are apostasy. Apostasy is deserting the Lord God, becoming faithless to him, and abandoning the faith of our fathers. That is exactly what the nation of Israel had done, and now God is calling them back to making a definite choice. God clearly punishes apostasy. He will be God of all or God not at all. Actually, the Israelites had settled for syncretism. They sought to simply combine and reconcile the different beliefs: a little of the Hebrew God and a little of the pagan gods, mix them according to personal taste, and worship the result. But Elijah said, "No way!" God is an exclusive God, he knows that all other gods are worthless. The point is that God is God, period! The psalmist said, "My heart is fixed, O God, on Thee" (Psalm 108:1).

Have you ever wondered what would happen if God would be your God -- your only God? Not money, not your children, not your spouse, not sex, not power, not your job, not sports, not self -- but God and God alone? Wow! What a difference it would make in your entire life, for God rewards fidelity and God fights all the battles for those who truly make him Lord of all.

Oswald Chambers wrote, "Never try to explain God till you have obeyed him. The only bit of God we understand is the bit we have obeyed." There is a wondrous confidence and reassurance in choosing, knowing, and obeying the Lord God of the scriptures. We need then recognize only one voice, obey only one Master, and follow only one standard. Let the clamor of all other gods sound about us, our trust is in the Lord 35 who changes not and who ever abideth faithful. God wants to be your only God, but once you have chosen him, you see how powerless, puny, and helpless all other gods can be. It is truly a "no-contest" contest. God Wants To Answer Your Prayers Elijah then proposes a test to see which god they will worship. Two altars will be built, two sacrifices will be made, and the God who consumes the sacrifices with fire will be declared the winner of the contest.

The prophets of Baal are given every advantage in the contest. They get to go first. Thus Elijah can never be accused of rigging the results in his favor.

The contest begins in the early morning with 450 prophets of Baal. It was easy enough to prepare the sacrifice and lay it on the altar, but getting an answer from Baal is something else! Then begin the long hours of vain crying -- of course it is vain for heathenism has no true prayer. They howled, they cried, they raved, they pled, they begged, they cut themselves with swords and lances until they bled, but silence was their only answer.

The day wore on, their voices grew hoarse; and Elijah taunted them as he suggested that their god must be tired, or resting, or asleep, or on a journey.

As the evening shadows begin to lengthen, the scriptures point out with poignant and vivid simplicity how futile is their cause, for it says of their wild, frantic, all-day endeavors, "There was no voice, no answer, no response."

Then the wild commotion turns to holy calm. The sun is sinking behind the peak of Mount Carmel, and Elijah, with his own hands, repairs the ruined altar of Jehovah. He rebuilds it with 12 stones, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. He then places the sacrifice upon the altar. Next he calls for four barrels of water to be poured on the sacrifice to soak it, and then four more barrels, and then four more: 12 in all. The water 36drenches the sacrifice, runs down the altar, and fills the trench all about it. A totally saturated sacrifice.

Then Elijah prays: a simple, brief prayer of only about 60 words. Notice -- no screaming, no wailing, no self-inflicted wounds -- just a calm confidence as he addresses his prayer with adoration of the name of Jehovah and requests the fire to fall. Note, too, that this prophet had no exalted opinion of himself, for he reminded God that he was only doing what God had told him to do. He then requests that in God's answer the people would once again know God and fasten their hearts on him.

Elijah's prayer did what the all-day crying of the pagans could never do. God answered! God sent fire! The fire consumed the sacrifice, and the altar, and the stones, and the dust, and even the water in the trench!

Elijah's God still lives today and answers prayer with power. God craves to answer our prayers and meet our needs. A study of Elijah's prayer and then using it as an example for ourselves would be helpful in getting results from heaven too.

Bear in mind that Elijah did exactly what God wanted him to do. He said in his prayer, "I did all these things at your command." How often do we pray powerless prayers and without faith for we know we have been disobedient to God's command? Guilt makes for feeble faith. There is nothing that so quickly feeds faith and opens heaven's doors as a true repentance when we have sinned. Then follows a quiet assurance that God hears us when we lift our needs to him. What Elijah asked was virtually impossible as far as humanity was concerned, but Elijah knew that nothing was too big for God, nor too impossible. Many persons are afraid to pray because they are afraid they will ask God to do something he cannot do. But if God is God, then be realistic. Ask the impossible!

A few months ago my husband John took a man to see the doctor. His wife had requested it because she was confined to a wheelchair, and therefore was unable to do it for him. The man was very weak and could hardly make the trip, but did manage to see the doctor who sent him home with other 37medication. Two days later John got the word that the man had died, so he went to visit the wife and offer sympathy. After visiting a while, John asked her, "Would you like me to have prayer with you and for you?" He did not know they were of the Jewish faith, until her response. She said, "Oh, yes! I would be so glad if you would pray. I need it so much." Then she added, "The rabbi came to visit my husband a few hours before he died and my husband asked the rabbi if he would offer a prayer for him. The rabbi hesitated a long while, pondered, and then said, 'Well, I guess I could pray if you think it would do any good.' " Let it forever be known as an absolute truth that it does do good to pray! God does hear prayer. God does answer prayer. It has been my experience that God does not always give us exactly what we request, but he does always answer, usually in one of four ways. He may say, "Yes," "No," "Wait," or "I'm going to surprise you with something better." But always he gives us what is for our highest and best good. Count on it!

Notice the simplicity of Elijah's prayer. Clear, to the point, and only about 60 words. We so often complicate things. A wife reported to her husband that she was having trouble with her car; it had water in the carburetor. Her husband laughed and said, "That's ridiculous. It doesn't have water in the carburetor. Besides, you don't even know what a carburetor is. Where is the car?" She replied, "It's in the swimming pool!"

We, too, muddle things with intricate complications when we pray, but it is not necessary. Little children often point us the way to simplicity in prayer. They have a way of getting right to the heart of things without undue confusion. One little boy, named Peter, prayed, "Dear God, that fairy you sent left five cents for my tooth and a quarter for my brother. You still owe me 20 cents." A little girl thought to make it clear how God could improve things, so she prayed, "Dear God, the people in the next apartment fight real loud all the time. You should only let very good friends get married. Nan."

And Elijah's prayer was selfless. He had the best of motives. He said, "Answer me, so these people will know that 38you, O Lord, are God." He wanted God to be glorified, his name to be honored. There was nothing of self nor selfishness in his prayer. God answered, and fire fell from heaven!

God is God, and he longs for his people to call upon him. So often we have made God smaller than he is. We've said, "Now that we have penicillin we can do without prayer. Let's have Medicare and Medicaid and we can live without mercy. Give us sulfa and forget salvation. Give us finance and we can do without faith. If we have gold we don't need God."

But we do need God. We cannot and must not try to live without prayer. Dr. Randy Byrd, a San Francisco cardiologist, has done a double-blind, randomized, study of prayer relating to 393 coronary care unit patients in San Francisco General Hospital. (Double-blind means that neither patients nor doctors knew who was being prayed for. All were in the same comparable age group and same comparable condition. They were impartially chosen by a computer.) Dr. Byrd arranged for prayer groups to pray for 192 of the patients, but not for 201 others. The patients who were subjects of prayer suffered fewer complications. Only three required antibiotics, 16 of the "unprayed for" needed the drug. Only six of the prayed for suffered pulmonary edema, while 18 of the non-prayed for did. There was 20 percent faster recovery, for those prayed for. One of the prayed for died, 16 of the unremembered died. When we are sick, or at any other time in our lives, it remains true that the quickest way to get back on your feet is to get down on your knees. It's A "No-Contest" Contest There can be no doubt about it. It's a "no-contest" contest: you always get along better when you pray! And, the fact is, the "no-contest" contest on Mount Carmel was never a battle between two competing gods. Instead, it was a contest between God and an empty delusion. 39 The results were in long before the competition began. You need to know that when you fight God you lose every time, and when you trust and obey, you are the victor every time!"